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Bionic Ear
Institute
Geelong man receives bionic ear mantle
2 August 2006
Professor Rob Shepherd has been
appointed as Director to Australia’s Bionic Ear Institute, following in the
footsteps of Professor Graeme Clark, the inventor of the bionic ear.
His appointment follows a global search for the right person. Portland-born,
Geelong-education—the local man shone through.
Twenty years on - a step towards a better bionic
ear and a new institute
11 April 2005
Prime Minister launches
Australian Centre for Medical Bionics and Hearing Science and contributes $5
million
11 April 2005 (Launched at 384 Albert Street,
East Melbourne)
The Prime Minister today announced the
establishment of the world’s first centre for medical bionics and hearing
science—on the 20th anniversary of the first bionic ear implanted in
a child.
Mr Howard said, “I am very pleased to
announce today that the Australian Government will contribute $5 million towards
the Australian Centre for Medical Bionics and Hearing Science.”
“The Centre will conduct fundamental
research into bionics—creating the technologies needed for a new generation of
bionic devices for hearing, as well as spinal cord repair and other
applications. It will build on Australia’s global leadership with the bionic
ear,” he said.
At the same time, the inventor of the
Bionic Ear, Prof Graeme Clark, foreshadowed building a new bionic ear to give
deaf children near-normal hearing, using a range of new technologies including
“smart plastic”.
“The plastic will coax nerve cells to
grow towards the bionic ear, creating a better connection between brain and
bionics. It will be one of the platform technologies to be developed by the new
Centre,” Prof Clark said.
The seed funding to create the Centre
has come from Prof Clark’s donation of his $300,000 Prime Minister’s Science
Prize, and a further contribution of $700,000 from the Federal Government.
Professor Clark is seeking a further $40 million to complete his vision for the
Centre.
“We’re delighted by the additional
Federal government support announced this morning,” Prof Clark said. “The Bionic
Ear makes a real difference to deaf kids. In Victoria, half of them develop
speech and language skills appropriate to their age and are able to attend
mainstream schools.
“But I believe we could make it
perform better in noisy situations like classrooms, family mealtimes and
parties, and even for listening to music. We need better speech
processing software, and better electrodes which go inside the inner ear and
interact with the nerve cells to send signals to the brain.
“Last year Institute researchers used
natural nerve growth factors to prevent damaged nerve cells from degenerating,
and induced them to grow again.
“Now we have discovered how to make a
smart plastic coating which we can apply to the bionic ear electrode and
control. A small electric current causes the plastic to release the growth
factor in a controlled manner. The electric current and growth factor work
together to help protect and regenerate the nerves in the inner ear.”
“We may even be able to control the
direction of regrowth – train the nerves so to speak,” says Professor Gordon
Wallace of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute at the University
of Wollongong, who developed the technology in partnership with the Institute.
“The same technology also has
potential for spinal cord repair,” says Adrian Cameron, one of the first
scientists recruited to the new Institute. “We are investigating the use
of this smart plastic (a polypyrrole) to provide a scaffold between severed
sections of the spine. Again, the polypyrrole will be loaded with the
appropriate nerve growth factors. As the growth factors are slowly released,
the nerves should regenerate through the scaffold . Our major challenge will be
to persuade them to reconnect with the right motor neurons on the other side of
the injury.”
The 20th anniversary
celebration was also marked by two community donations to the new Institute.
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John Nelson presented a cheque for
$45,500—raised cycling half way around Australia after losing both legs
below the knees to meningococcal disease; and
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Darvell Hutchinson, Chairman of The Helen McPherson Smith Trust
presented a cheque for $126,470 to provide a career
start audiologist and undergraduate engineer with a taste of medical research
helping to evaluate promising new speech processing strategies.
(Click thumbnail to access high res image) |
Our aim is to create a
new generation cochlear implant that maintains the very nerves
that it is designed to stimulate.
We will design and
test cochlear implants coated with a special polymer that
releases neurotrophins in a controlled manner to keep nerves
alive and guide the fibers towards a normal growth pattern for
greater control of nerve stimulation and better hearing with the
cochlear implant.
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